Football FanCast columnist Rob Facey cannot believe he put himself through 90mins of sheer torture yesterday and asks the question, "Who needs England, when you have Croatia?"

After watching Croatia labour to a dreadful 1-0 victory over Austria, you couldn't help wondering just how poor England was to lose to Slavan Bilic's side.

But, at the same time, after watching yesterdays result, I've got to ask: ‘who needs England when you have Croatia?' The ironies and similarities are endless and depressing in equal measure. See if you can spot any differences between the two from this rather crude match review from yesterday:

The players enter the arena showing a mixture of emotions. What is clearly meant to be determination comes across as a mixture of apathy, constipation and confusion as to why they are not in Ayia Napa. As the fans belt out the anthem, the players choose to pout into the camera lens rather than join in. But at least they look nice in their tracksuits.

As the game gets going it is clear the players are lining up in their usual 4-4-2 and good for them, why should they change? Despite the rest of the excelling with new formations; fusing wide men and lone strikers as well as holding and attacking midfielders to play a brand of stylish, attacking football, this team sticks with its tried and tested 4-4-2 even if it may not have the right players for the positions.

They are, as always, fancied by some to win the whole tournament. They start off with a relatively easy group game, against the lowest ranked team in the competition. They even score an early goal, a penalty no less, (OK, I admit, England would not have scored a penalty), and proceed to spend the next 80 minutes behind the ball, defending dreadfully and deciding against creating a decent attacking opportunity for the rest of the game.

At one stage it actually looks as if the ‘plucky minnows' can grab something from the game as the favourites do their best to make a complete hash of things as if they are competing for some footballing incapability benefit scheme. Sustained pressure from the minnows prompts a radical change in tactics - mainly a lot of pointing and shouting by the goalkeeper and defenders at nobody and about nothing in particular.

For the final 10 minutes everybody loses interest, including the players, and viewers at home spend their time channel hopping in the hope that they will stumble across a something that resembles entertainment, because they certainly weren't getting that from the football. Oh look, Time Team...

Eventually, after what seems like days, the final whistle ends and the players sink to their knees and kiss the ground as if they have won the whole tournament and also found a solution for third world debt. Post match, someone who can barely string a sentence together in English is then asked what he thought of the game and mumbles something about "lads", something along the lines of "110% for the whole 90 minutes" and "no such thing as an easy game at this level" by way of an excuse.

I ask you, who needs England when you have Croatia?

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